The First Winners

The Australian Chess Championship continues in Springvale, though yesterday I didn't stay long to see the action as I was still feeling pretty weak. A shame, as it was an action packed day. It was the final round of the Challengers tournament, a 9-round swiss for players rated below 1600. Before the round started there were about 8 players still in contention for a top 3 finish. In the end the board 1 match Calixto Dilag-Zhi Lin Guo ended in a draw which gave Calixto the title on 7.5/9. He could have been caught by Mark Stokes, but on board 2 Mark was beaten by Alanna Chew Lee, which pulled her up to equal third with Stokes and Carl Loucas who also won his last game against Jamie Kenmure. This was a great little tournament that I hope becomes a permanent feature at Australian Championships.

2014 Australian Challengers:
1. 7.5/9 Calixto Dilag
2. 7/9    Zhi Lin Guo
3. 6.5/9 Mark Stokes, Alanna Chew Lee, Carl Loucas

Zhi Lin Guo and Alanna Chew Lee laughing before the final round

2014 Challengers winner, Calixto Dilag

While the Challengers was finishing, carnage was happening in the Championship with both the leaders going down, and a big change in the standings. Max Illingworth beat Vasily Papin with the black pieces to leapfrog into first place on 6.5/9. He was joined in first by Igor Bjelobrk who gave Bobby Cheng his second successive defeat. Papin is just half a point behind the leaders as was the other overnight leader, Moulthon Ly who also lost. Moulthun lost to Darryl Johansen who joins the group on 6/9, as does Stephen Solomon, Anton Smirnov and Tu Hoang Thong.

IM Cheng-IM Goldenberg Round 10

IM Lane-Zelesco Round 10

All that happened yesterday, and the situation clarified somewhat today. IM Max-Illingworth drew with Vietnamese GM Tu leaving Max in first place on 7/10. Max is joined in first this time by 13 year old FM Anton Smirnov who defeated IM Igor Bjelobrk on board 2.

Championship Standings (before the last round):

1. 7/10 Illingworth, Smirnov
3. 6.5   Tu, Papin, Johansen, Bjelobrk, Solomon, Ly, Goldenberg, Zelesco

The title will come from these players, though the players just behind can still claim a high position. One controversy was the withdrawal before this penultimate round of Brodie McClymont. I don't know why the talented young player from Queensland withdrew but it threw the tournament organisers, and created a bye. As far as I know, this withdrawal was not sanctioned by the organisers so Brodie may face some punishment for this action. Hopefully for chess in Australia and particularly Queensland, the ACF will not be too hard on Brodie, though his future behaviour at tournament will have to be good.

The Reserves event has been wrapped up with a super performance by FM Doug Hamilton. The veteran, and 3 times Australian Champion has powered to 9.5/10 and now cannot be caught. This, of course, adds fuel to the fire concerning whether Doug should have been admitted to the Championship (see Alex Wohl's blog, for a more detailed take on this subject), and the validity of the 'equal proficiency' clause for admitting players into the Championship. I'm going to stay sitting on the fence regarding this issue, but I will say that Doug's weakness tends to be in tournaments that have many games over a short space of time nowadays, whereas the one game per day is much more to his taste. His understanding of the game is as good as most of the players in the Championship field, even if his calculation and energy levels may not be as good as they once were. I'm not saying here that he should have been selected for the Championship, just that it is a shame that he wasn't in the event. Anyway, the rest of the Reserves field is playing for the minor places with the standings before the last round being:

9.5 Hamilton
7.5 Beaumont, Fasakin, Grabovac
7    Sheldrick, Yu, Burke, Lojanica
6.5 Hain, Holland, Schmidt, Girgin, Chew Lee, Fan

Where's Brodie McClymont?

Australian Chess Championship

Chief Arbiter Kerry Stead doing a great job at the 2014 Australian Chess Championships

I was feeling somewhat wiped out today. Don't know what the matter was with me, but I've felt unbelievably tired the past 24 hours. So it was with less enthusiasm than normal that I went to Springvale to watch the Australian Chess Championships today. I spent quite a bit of time in the analysis room, chatting and then analysing games with players when they finished. One subject that cropped up in the chatting was concerning chess organisation in Australia. I said that I'd prefer to see a more centrally based administration with direct membership and genuine organisation coming from the ACF in regards to the Australian Championships and Junior Championships. Perhaps I was speaking to people with a similar outlook as myself, but no one seemed to disagree. I think I'd walked into a conversation concerning the overlap between the adult and junior championships this year, and the probable worse congestion next year with Queenstown likely to be on the Calendar. I guess things won't change and talking about them in an analysis room isn't going to get them changed either, so I'll move on to the chess.

The leading 3 players in the Championship turned into a leading 2, as Bobby Cheng lost to Max Illingworth. The other leaders, Papin and Ly both drew and are half a point ahead. Max comes up alongside Bobby half a point behind the leaders and also on that score is Igor Bjelobrk (drew with Papin) and Hoang Thong Tu (drew with Ly). There are then a further 11 players within 1.5 of the 2 leaders so with 3 rounds to go, much could happen. Top pairings in the next round:

Papin-Illingworth
Johansen-Ly
Cheng-Bjelobrk
Tu-Lane

Perhaps my mind wasn't fully on the chess, but the game that caught my eye today was Morris-Charles. This was nothing to do with the position which was some kind of King's Indian Attack, but the fact that the clock times were about 1:05-3.20 at one stage (or 1 hour 5 minutes to Morris, and 3 minutes 20 seconds to Charles).

Meanwhile in the Reserves, Doug Hamilton continues to dominate with another win taking him to 7.5/8 and a point clear of the rest of the field. David Beaumont and Marko Grabovac are on 6.5 while Milenko Lojanica (Doug's victim today) is on 6. Doug has played all 3 of these players and drops to the group 2 points behind him with Colin Savige his next opponent.

The Challengers also has a clear leader in Calixto Dilag who won again today to take his score to 7/8. Tomorrow is the last round of this tournament and it will be a tense affair as 2 players (Mark Stokes, Zhi Lin Guo) are only half a point behind, and the top pairing sees Dilag-Guo in an exciting tournament decider. Stokes will be working hard on board 2, and hoping to win and a share of the title.

Spectators today included MCC stalwart Elie Beranjia in his best Hercule Poirot pose :)

Outside of Australian chess, I'd just like to mention a couple of things. A big thank you to Mark Crowther at TWIC who has just produced his 1000th edition of the FREE weekly news round up of world chess. That's 20 years of dedication to bringing the world of chess to the internet. And the other thing is that the 10th January doesn't just see the start of the Australian Junior Chess Championships in Sydney. There is also the little matter of the Tata Steel festival starting in Holland where there will be some Australian interest. IM Ari Dale, his borther Finlay Dale and WIM Arianne Caoilli all play in sections at the festival and I wish them luck in their games and also in staying warm during the Dutch winter.

Spectator vs Player

I have to say that watching the 2014 Australian Championships has been far harder for me than any tournament I've played in. After today, I arrived home, went for a run, showered and then promptly fell asleep. It's close to midnight now and I'd better post or it will be back to bad days of procrastination.

Australian Blitz Champion 2014, IM Bobby Cheng. Can he do the double?

So yesterday there was a the Australian blitz championship which holds little interest for me. Bobby Cheng won the title though Vietnamese GM Hoang Thong Tu won the event. There was also an ACF AGM held, but this holds about as much interest for me as the blitz event. Apparently, the ACF have decided to sponsor the Australian Championship to the tune of $5000 in the future, as averse to offer $5000 as a guarantee against losses. Personally, I think the ACF should be directing the running of the event anyway so while this is a welcome step, I guess I'd still like to see more central involvement from the ACF in organisation of the Championship.

And talking of the Championship, 3 rounds have happened since I last wrote. At the top we have 3 leaders on 5.5/7 and they've all played each other: GM Papin, IM's Cheng and Ly. They are followed on 5/7 by IM Bjelobrk and GM Tu, so the top 2 pairings of round 8 are:

Bjelobrk-Papin
Ly-Tu

Bobby Cheng is floating further down to meet IM Max Illingworth who is one of 7 players on 4.5, while a further 5 sit on 4. I know a lot can happen in the last 4 rounds, but I can't see anyone from below this group taking a high position (though I'd be happy to eat my words if this happens).

3 times Champion, Doug Hamilton adjusting his pieces against Derek Yu

The Reserves tournament is being led by the popular Doug Hamilton. Doug has won the actual championship 3 times, and there was some controversy over whether he should be playing in this year's Championship or not (check out Alex Wohl's latest blog post). Whatever, he is playing and leading the Reserves, ahead of a pretty strong field. The Challengers is the third tournament for players under 1600. It is only a 9 round event (compared to 11 for the Championship and Reserves) and tomorrow will see round 8. There is a large bunch within striking distance, but a single player, Calixto Dilag currently leads by half a point. Today I'll leave you with some images from the event :)

Springvale Town Hall, with great viewing balcony

WGM Sukander-GM Johansen (a win for the WGM)

Karl Zelesco-Max Illingworth

WCM Vineetha Wijesuriya

WIM Alexandra Jule

Zhi Lin Guo

Alanna Chew Lee

David Beaumont

Australian Chess Championships

The 2014 Australian Chess Championships have had great coverage so far. The website is excellent, there is coverage on TWIC and besides this blog, 2 others are writing about tournament: IM Alex Wohl is writing as well as playing, and Chief Arbiter Kerry Stead is also writing about the event as well as working tirelessly arbitering, entering games, and anything else that needs to be done. So an official view, an international chess news view, a competitor's view, an arbiter's view and a spectator's view. What more could you want?

Top seed, Russian GM Vasily Papin

The tournament has begun to take shape, with visiting Russian GM Papin the man to beat. On 3/3 today he was paired with one of Australia's great hopes for the future, IM Bobby Cheng. The game ended in a draw by perpetual after 30 moves, and I guess both players will be satisfied with that result.

IM Bobby Cheng focussed against GM Papin

The draw between the 2 leaders gave others a chance, and it was IM Moulthun Ly who took full advantage with a win against IM Max Illingworth. Behind the 3 leaders there is a group of 6 players just half a point behind, GM's Tu and Johansen, WGM Sukander, IM's Solomon and Bjelobrk and FM Anton Smirnov. Tomorrow should be a big sorting out with another double round, and it will start with some great pairings as Aussie young guns IM's Ly-Cheng face off on board 1, while visiting GM's Papin-Tu play on board 2. This is definitely a round to follow live!

GM Johansen (with his back to us) moves into equal second with a win against IM James Morris

IM Moulthun Ly (right) making an early move in his victory against IM Max Illingworth

Indonesian WGM Irine Kharisma Sukander  also in the group just half a point behind the leaders.

This position made it onto the daily newspaper Chess Today as one of the puzzles of the day! It comes from the first round game between  Jason Tang and Anton Smirnov. Anton as black has an amazing protected passed pawn on b2 but how to take advantage of this? Anton played the fantastic 36..Rb3!! based on the fact that the rook can't be taken and threatening to play Rc3-c1. Jason prevented the rook coming to c3 with 37.Kd4, but Anton then just started taking pawns 37..Kxd6 and the h-pawn will soon fall also.

Future Australian Champion (?) Anton Smirnov

I'm not going to say much about the Reserves and Challengers tournaments until the rest day on Monday. However, it is great to see admininstrators doing well over the board, so congrats to Mark Stokes on leading the Challengers, while it is also good to see a not too frequent player doing well in the Reserves; congrats to Derek Yu who is the only player on 4/4.

The final thought for the day. The hardest thing in chess must be to play a good friend. I've always found it difficult, though thankfully haven't had to play really close friends that often. Imagine what it must be like to play a sibling, or close family relative?

Stojic Brothers Svetozar (left) and FM Dusan in round 4. They are also both on the organising committee for the tournament

Double Rounds

The 2014 Australian Chess Championship is an 11 round tournament, but these games are going to be played over 9 days which means that 2 of the days will have double rounds. There are a lot of negative factors about double rounds in a day. Preparation time is minimal for the second game, and it is a huge amount of mental energy playing perhaps 10 hours of chess in one day. This can have an affect on the next day too, in terms of tiredness and lack of preparation. However, it is the same for everyone and a good day can give momentum to a player, and really boost confidence, while a bad day can have the adverse affect.

Cheng-Choong Rd 1. What did white play? Answer at the end

I was just spectating, coaching and generally schmoozing and I became tired after about 8 hours at the playing venue so the players have my total sympathy. I didn't stay for the completion of the 3rd round, and unfortunately missed the incident when a bird decided to crap on the board of visiting GM Tu from Vietnam. Apparently the incident caused quite a bit of interest for a while with a crowd gathering around the board. In the end the game continued between Tu and the 2013 Oceania Zonal winner IM Igor Bjelobrk ended in a draw. This was in the third round. Earlier in the day, all 3 Grandmasters won in the second round. Vasily Papin of Russia looks to be in very good form and he won against FM Chris Wallis. He is joined on 2/2 by IM Bobby Cheng (yay for my prediction, though it's early days yet), IM Gary Lane, and IM Stephen Solomon. (Watching live now, I see that Papin beat Lane to go to 3/3 while Cheng Solomon is in progress) The pack on 1.5 included both the other GM's Johansen and Tu. The games can be downloaded from the site and are being uploaded pretty quickly (I helped with some Reserves games today, so they may come online soon!)

The h3 Nxf2 Round 

The following 2 positions caught my attention because the same moves happened in them. White thought that a knight on g4 needed to be kicked away with a little pawn move. Unfortunately, the knight didn't need to go back!

 This was a tragedy for IM Igor Goldenberg who had dominated this game. 18.h3 is pretty much forced, but I'm guessing Igor and any spectators watching expected the knight to retreat to f6. That is not FM Eddy Levi's style though. 18..Nxf2!?. There followed 19.Qxd7 Bc5 when the following position was reached:

White is a piece down, but the position is very difficult with 4 black pieces looking in the direction of white's king. White blundered here with 20.Kg2? [Apparently 20.Ne6 attacking the bishop on c5 and threatening mate on g7 was a winning move, but it is a scary position so I don't blame anyone for getting it wrong, even an IM] 20..h6 [Removing the defender from f3 so black's queen can come into the attack with check] 21.Nce4 hxg5 22.Nxc5 Qf3+ 23.Kh2 Rad8! [Deflecting white's queen from protecting g4] 24.Qxd8

24..Ng4+! 25.hxg4 Qe2+ and white had to resign as he loses his rook with check and then his queen.

The next game which featured the moves h3 Nxf2 was between Gareth Charles and IM Gary Lane.

In this position, the move 16.h3 is bad because it allows black to win a mass of pawns for the piece. 16..Nxf2 17.Qe1 [This knight looks trapped, but...] 17..Nxh3+ [This is why 16.h3 was a bad move] 18.Kh2 Nf2 19.Kg1

Black is already 2 pawns up, so letting the knight go for some more pawns isn't a tough decision. 19..Qxd3 20.Rxf2 Rxf2 21.Kxf2 Qxc4 and black has 4 pawns for the piece with a mighty mobile centre, and white's king is exposed in the bargain. He went on to win about 10 moves later.


The Reserves and Challengers also have to play 2 games today. There weren't too many draws in either of these events, which left large groups tied for first, 13 players on 2/2 in the Reserves, and 11 in the Challengers.

Cheng-Choon: Bobby as white played 16.Bb5!? taking advantage of his lead in development. The piece sac may not be 100% sound but it is a great practical decision, forcing his opponent to make a lot of difficult decisions to stay alive, which Choong wasn't quite up to. Check out the game below.

Australian Chess Championship 2014

The 2014 Australian Chess Championship started today in Springvale, Melbourne. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photo's today, so this will be a brief report. I arrived at the venue a couple of hours before the first round started and met up with a lot of people I haven't seen for a while as I'd been out of the chess scene for most of last year. It was good to be there, and just makes me want to get back into playing. The venue itself is an excellent hall, full of light (we'll see what it is like tomorrow at night) and space, with a viewing balcony and a large analysis room. The tournament is split into 3 sections with the main event being an elite field of players rated 2150+ except for a few juniors below that level. The field for the Championship is 42 players and includes 3 Grandmasters and 10 International Masters, making it one of the strongest fields ever. Besides the Championship, there is a Reserves section for players rated below 2150, and a Challengers event for players rated below 1600. There are usually only 2 sections, but having 3 this year definitely seems to have helped boost the numbers for the event overall which stands at a record breaking 192 players. The tournament continues until January 11th at the rate of a game per day except for tomorrow and Sunday 5th January when there will be 2 games per day. Also, there is a blitz tournament being held on Monday 6th, so there will be no games in the other events.

Jean Watson's excellent poster for the 2014 Australian Chess Championships

The tournament has been organised by Noble Park Chess Club, a relatively new club in suburban Melbourne. At the opening ceremony it was evident that the success of organising this event was down to the cohesion of the organising group. The speakers at the opening ceremony did a great job in my opinion. ACF President, Gary Wastell gave a moving speech paying homage to the many chess losses that the Australian chess scene had suffered in 2013. Councillor Roz Blades of Dandenong Council then spoke a welcome message acknowledging the traditional owners of the land, and praising the efforts of Noble Park Chess Club in organising the event who the council are happy to support. The Chairman of the organising committee, Dusan Stojic, then spoke. He told us of the efforts that he and his committee have made to get the tournament off the ground, and praised the other committee members for their efforts and for their freindship. In fact, Dusan's speech was most gracious thanking a number of people: Jean Watson, who designed the event poster, Pearl Yung for sponsorship of the event, Gary Wastell for his help, the arbiters, and even the visiting Grandmasters. In fact, Dusan went as far as to thank the players, being "delighted with the turn out", and thanking the participants "for putting your faith in trusting us to run the event". If the incident free first day is anything to go by, the players have been wise in their trust.

The first round of the event was a little late in starting and there were 3 non playing IM's among the spectators that I saw, CV President Leonid Sandler, Vladimir Smirnov (no doubt supporting his son Anton who is playing in the Championship), and Guy West who told me had hoped to play, but wasn't fully prepared. I know the feeling Guy! An early winner in the Championship was top seed, GM Vasily Papin who quickly beat organising chairman FM Dusan Stojic. The organising committee did get their own back, with FM Domagoj Dragicevic drawing with the other overseas GM in the event Hoang Thong Tu from Vietnam. The other GM in the event, Darryl Johansen also scored a draw against Laurence Matheson. The big casualties of the first round were IM's Goldenberg, Wohl, Brown and FM Jordan who all lost to lower rated opposition. However, with an 11 round tournament, an early loss or draw is not the most tragic thing, and there is plenty of time for these players to come back.

The Reserves looks to be a tough event, with a number of players who must be considered close to Championship strength. The competitiveness of the Reserves can be seen by the fact that top seed Dean Hogg (2070) could only draw with Luis Chan (1734). Whoever wins this one will certainly have to come through a tough draw. The challengers on the other hand has few players near the top rating level. However, it does have a number of unrated, and probably under rated players who can play strongly on their day, but may lack the consistency over a whole tournament. So again, the winner of this will have to play to the best of their ability, though not for quite so long as this is only a 9 round event.

So I guess for now, the only thing for me to do is make my predictions:

Championship: Bobby Cheng to become Champion (although a foreign GM may win it)!
Reserves: Kevin Sheldrick each way bet
Challengers: Alana Chew Lee to place

From tomorrow there will be photo's, games and part games, but for now, it is good that it is underway!

Just Another Day?

Sydney celebrates New Year last night (photo: news.com.au)

It's the first day of 2014. At least it is according to the Gregorian Calendar. It is a holiday, and is usually celebrated festively, and we now have amazing firework displays around the World competing for the most spectacular. Actually, in religious terms the significance of the New Year is that it represents the day when Christ was circumcised and officially given his name. The Gregorian Calendar only came into being in the 18th century, and before that, the English celebrated New Year on March 25th which is the day that Gabriel apparently told Mary that she would bear the son of God (the Annunciation). Most of the Western world eventually adopted January 1st in line with the Gregorian Calendar, ironically matching the pagan festival of Janus which was celebrated by Romans and from which we get the name January.

January 1st is only the New Year in the Western Christian world. There are plenty of other New Year's celebrated throughout the year. Chinese New Year usually falls around the end of January or start of February. This year they are celebrating the year of the Horse, which is the same year in which I was born, which hopefully augurs well for me! The Chinese New Year was created over 1000 years before the birth of Christ although it has had developments over the millenia. Ancient calendars also dominate the middle east where different New Year's are celebrated, such as in Iran (Nowruz) where the vernal equinox around March 21 is celebrated, or the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) which takes place in September. Our multicultural societies make us more aware of the celebrations of other cultures, and it is hard not to be aware of the Diwali festivities that often happen in November.

Chinese New Year is a very red celebration! (photo: wikipedia)

So with all this variation on what constitutes the New Year, is January 1st, much like March 25th, or a certain day in virtually any month of the year really that significant? Or is it just another day? One thing that people in the western world do is make resolutions. I saw the most sensible reaction to resolutions on Twitter the other day, by none other than ex World chess Champion, Garry Kasparov:

"Making resolutions once a year is as effective as eating healthy food once a year or exercising once a year. Consider your plans every day"

So what did I do on my New Year's Day here in Melbourne? Well, I slept in as it had been a late night, went for a coffee with Caroline who had the day off work, then went shopping and finally went for a run. Was that really any different from a normal day? Well apart from the lack of cafes open, or the amount of people in IKEA looking to bag a sale item it wasn't really too different. I do appreciate that January 1st can represent a new start for people, especially if the previous year was not too good. But what I'm really trying to say is that any day can represent a new start for someone, and the important thing for each of us is to make the most of every day. Of course I still wish people Happy New Year, and I still indulge in the festivities, but the things and people who mean something to me are just as important every day.

For anyone reading this, I hope 2014 is a great year for you :)